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Sweater Questions

Submitted by Masala on Thu, 2011-03-17 11:20

Yikes! If you have knitted sweaters and give give me a suggestion, please help! I my have over shot my front sweater panel by 1/2 inch. At the beginning of the initial underarm shaping, I should have knitted up 7 1/4 inches before the neck shaping and I still have five pattern rows with castoff neck shaping to finish BEFORE the top shoulder shaping. What will the consequences be when I sew the front and back together (half inch more on the front) and what are your suggestions to compensate this error of mine? All help and suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Sid

Comments

my first question is what material did you knit this sweater in? If it's wool, then I suggest blocking the pieces to size (yes, wool will "shrink!") and then assembling them.

Just wet the pieces as normal, roll them in towels to get most of the water out of them, and, assuming the back is the correct size, referring to the measurements in the pattern, carefully pin the back to shape, being sure to keep all the columns and rows of stitches even (this takes a while)

Once the back is blocked, repeat with the front, putting it alongside the back if possible so you can line up the underarm decreases and neck shaping, etc.

I hope that helps -

the second option would be to do some research - count your gauge on the back and on the front - did your gauge change? are you knitting more loosely now? if so, I'd rip the front back to before the underarm decreases, and perhaps go down one needle size and then work your way back up.

The last option would be to just assemble it and see what it looks like. you can always rip out the seaming and try option #2 after that... just check it out before you weave all your ends in.

Thank you so much. The sweater is knitted out of wool. However, I did not check the guage on the front! I will make a note of that for the vest I'm going to make next. I will definately do the blocking first! I didn't have that worry when I knitted the other one in the round. I also thought about changing the final few rows to a smaller needle and I did not do this. You have been a very wonderful help with your knowledge. Cheers, Sid

Well, you know, sometimes a person needs a little bit extra "ease" on the front panel than on the back. Perhaps you have a bit of a belly? Nothing worse on a man than having a sweater that rides up in front! Same applies to a woman that has more "length" over the front than the back. So maybe this will all work out for you.

What kind of neck does the sweater have? If it's a v-neck or a crew neck that you are just finishing off with ribbing, I find that necks tend to grow larger for me, and so I usually knit mine a little smaller than a pattern usually calls for anyway (unless I'm doing a hemmed neckline). For a crew neck, usually you're casing off a lot more sts lower down than higher up (since the curvature is steeper there on the neckline) so maybe you don't cast off all these sts on these last 5 rows? In that case, maybe you can knit just 2 of these last rows and quit, provided that doesn't somehow adversely affect the pattern you're knitting.

Wool is pretty forgiving ... a half inch probably won't make a lot of difference once it's blocked, as Kyle suggested, and a quarter inch almost certainly won't. Although it depends on how much of a perfectionist you are, and if it will bother you just knowing it's a tad bit off :). In that case, you can always frog, re-establish your guage, and re-knit that part.